This appointment will be held at the Cardiac Rehab Office and will be arranged at the time of your telephone consultation. It will include a discussion about your cardiac event and recovery, identifying your personal cardiac risk factors and planning. We will discuss how we can best support a graded return to your usual activity, focusing on factors that will help to keep you well, something we call ‘secondary prevention’.
Ideally, this appointment will be arranged for between 2 and 6 weeks after your heart event (depending on the nature of the event i.e., surgery, heart attack), however there may be a waiting list in the short term. At this appointment you will also be offered a ‘functional exercise test’ to determine your baseline fitness, assess any symptoms of heart disease and to enable us to advise appropriate levels of exercise.
The purpose of the initial assessment is to help us to jointly establish your goals and agree on a realistic plan to achieve them. This plan might include:
- An (up to) 8-week graded exercise and education / advice programme
- An 8-week education/ advice only programme
- Referral to Clinical Psychology services
- 1:1 emotional support with an Occupational Therapist
- Home exercise programme
- Onward referral to community exercise services (subject to referral criteria)
